Denouement in Des Moines

En route to Denver, our disheartening choices are either traversing Iowa and Nebraska or Missouri and Kansas. We opt for the former, since it’s the tiniest bit more direct and we hear that St. Louis may be flooded out. We arrive at our motel ragged after midnight. Our Garmin got confused and thought we were staying at a Wendy’s. We should’ve followed its advice. I had envisioned quaint corn-patterned drapes and a down- home welcome. The “hostess” grunts for my credit card and tosses me our key. The room reeks of smoke and something that smells a lot like urine, which I try to ignore. We’re overlooking a highway. I don’t sleep.

The drive into the city of Des Moines is dull as a doorknob—only flatter. It’s a family- friendly city, still sandbagged in spots from the devastating floods. I spend our three hours there holed up in a coffee shop with free WiFi, trying to locate a motel in Nebraska that doesn’t suck.

We drive through the construction zone that is Omaha and stumble on the U.S. Olympic swim trials, where they’re handing out free bottled water. Omaha’s brick-faced downtown is thumping but we can’t find a steak for under $30. A local clues us into a no-frills steakhouse, Gorat’s, about 15 minutes from town, where Warren Buffett is reportedly a regular. No sign of the multi-billionaire, but we do experience our first moment of interracial awkwardness on this trip when we enter the dining room. A hush falls over the crowd. We forgo the pricier Omaha steak and split a 16-ounce sirloin. It’s a helluva steak and worth the stares.

Our tour of Nebraska includes a conversation with a trucker about the merits of ethanol, pondering why the corn isn’t as high as an elephant’s eye, and stopping in a sandwich shop in an old western throwback town called Ogallala, where an Asian woman (they have those here?) serves us a cup of cream of potato soup masking as clam chowder. We read the local newspaper, which could double as a napkin, except for the highly technical commodities report on corn and steer. We veer off the main road and grow excited as our Garmin tells us we’ll be approaching another town, only to find another abandoned gas station. One highlight is that the sky engulfs you here, since there’s nothing blocking the view from the ground.